Sierra Leone recorded 121 deaths from Ebola and scores of new infections in one of the single deadliest days since the disease appeared in the West African country more than four months ago, government health statistics showed on Sunday.

The figures, which covered the period through Saturday, put the total number of deaths at 678, up from 557 the day before. The daily statistics compiled by Sierra Leone's Emergency Operations Centre also showed 81 new cases of the hemorrhagic fever.

Ebola was first reported in Guinea in March and has since spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone in what has become the worst epidemic of the disease since Ebola was identified in 1976.

Smaller outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal were brought under control. The United States last week confirmed its first Ebola case, a Liberian national who had traveled to Texas.

The overall death toll from the epidemic reached 3,439 out of a total of 7,492 cases in West Africa and the United States as of Oct. 1, the World Health Organization said last week. The U.N. agency's statistics varied from those compiled by Sierra Leone.

After an initial slow response, international assistance and supplies are now pouring into West Africa.

The United States is deploying around 4,000 military personnel to the region to support efforts to combat the outbreak in Liberia, the country worst hit by the disease.

Britain and China have sent personnel to Sierra Leone. Cuba dispatched a 165-member medical team, including specialists and nurses, to Sierra Leone last week.

British farmers fear extreme financial difficulty as a result of government plans to push through shale gas drilling on their land without the promise of compensation, the UK's National Farmers' Union warns.

UK ministers in favor of fracking must not assume the backing of rural communities, the union cautions, stressing that such a move could stoke the ire of farmers concerned about a depreciation in the value of their land.

A failure to show consideration for farmers' concerns may risk turning them against shale gas exploration and drilling in their locales altogether, the NFU told the Telegraph on Monday.

Nevertheless, the government is pursuing a legislative shift, which will strip UK citizens of the right to obstruct plans to frack beneath their land or property. The coalition has confirmed compensation will not be issued to UK homeowners or landowners forced to tolerate fracking on their land - insisting gas and oil extraction will not spark a reduction in the value of land on which such processes occur.

But the NFU, which represents the interests of 55,000 members and 47,000 agricultural and farming businesses throughout Wales and England, says many of its members are acutely concerned that fracking could reduce the value of their land even if no ecological or environmental damage is sustained.

Florida man is facing manslaughter charges for allegedly fatally shooting a woman in the head after she slapped him as a joke.

The Clay County Sheriff's Office said that witnesses told investigators that 26-year-old Elliott William Orsborn, 26-year-old Jamie Lee Martin and others had been drinking in Martin's garage in Middleburg early Saturday morning, according to The Florida Times-Union.

Orsborn had reportedly been playing with his .22 revolver throughout the night, but the Sheriff's Office said that he had taken the bullets out earlier in the evening.

Martin's boyfriend asked Orsborn to "just chill" after he said something that upset her.

At some point, Martin "jokingly slapped the defendant across the face," the Clay County Sheriff's Office said. Witnesses said that Orsborn took the gun out of his shorts pocket and shot Martin in the forehead.

Martin's boyfriend recalled that Orsborn immediately said that he did not mean to shoot the victim. After a few minutes, Orsborn fled the scene.

Martin was transported to Orange Park Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

Derivative and gold expert Rob Kirby says the U.S. looks a lot like the run up to the fall of Rome more than 1,500 years ago. Kirby explains,

"The parallels with what we are experiencing today are so clear and so much like what was happening in Rome as Rome was falling. Diversions were the way of the day, anything to divert people's attention from the undermining of the empire. It was largely a financial debasement. Rome fell when they debased the currency. That's the major factor behind the fall of the Roman Empire. It was the debasement of the currency, and we are seeing the same thing today. What's at the heart of all these issues? What's at the heart of all the trouble in the world right now? The world's reserve currency has been debased to the point that it is going to go supernova. This is the whole illusion behind the strength of the dollar. The dollar isn't getting stronger, just like stars aren't going to have longevity when they go supernova. They get brighter and you might think the star is getting more viable when, in reality, the notion of it getting really bright before it goes supernova is exactly the opposite of the illusion of it getting brighter. It's what happens just before it goes black and dies."

A modern historian looking to chronicle the destruction of the America we all once knew could do no better than to deconstruct the U.S. education system today.

Along with providing American students a middling education at best - we rank 17th in the world and well-below-average for developed nations - what's really wrong with America's education system is the fact that we're engineering the next generation to become acclimated to what this country is becoming ...

And it's becoming a police state, where tolerance is zero and everyone is presumed guilty. The notion of innocence? To hell with that!

This will not end well for you or me, or our children.

As a parent - I have two kids in school - I am always on the lookout for examples of governmental transgressions ... so these days, of course, I am paying an inordinate amount of attention to American school systems. In few domestic settings will you find such misconduct (and downright ignorance) percolating through our country.

Whenever the public right to know comes under attack, a heavy responsibility falls on the journalist. When I was 17, my teacher told the class this salient information. Did the Western mainstream media learn it too or have they simply forgotten it?

"News is what someone wants to stop (you) from printing; all the rest is ads."- William Randolph Hearst.

Johnson's Russia List (JRL) was first published in 1996. I'd guess that every single working journalist with a passing interest in Russia is a subscriber - except me. However, it seems I might have been a tad foolish to ignore this resource. Note to self - less Groucho Marx, more Mark Twain.

The JRL is published daily, but occasionally increases frequency. As for the founder, I know zilch about him and we certainly have never crossed paths. However, this week, Mr. Johnson piqued my interest for the second time this autumn. The first was when he published a list of, what amounted to, US propaganda outlets which are anti-Russia by default. That was extremely useful for indicating to friends which news services to avoid for coverage of the region.

Sam Kane Beef Processors of Corpus Christi, Texas, has recalled 90,987 pounds of ground beef products after consumers complained about finding pieces of metal inside the meat, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Saturday.

The USDA said four consumers complained, with one person reporting a chipped tooth. The pieces of metal were reported to be about 3mm, a USDA press release said.

Alfred Bausch, general manager for the company, said all the products were shipped to Texas retail outlets.

"It was not a food safety issue," he said. "It was a foreign object and the foreign object was very small."

The press release said these products are subject to recall:

--3-pound packages of "HEB Ground Chuck," bearing the establishment number "337," a production date of "09/12/14" and a use by date of "10/02/14."

--5-pound packages of "HEB Ground Beef," "73% LEAN 27% FAT," bearing the establishment number "337," a production date of "09/15/14" and a use by date of "10/05/14."

--10-pound packages of "HEB Ground Beef," "73% LEAN 27% FAT," bearing the establishment number "337," a production date of "09/18/14" and a use by date of "10/08/14."

--10-pound clear film packages of formed patties made from Sam Kane Beef Processors "Ground Chuck," bearing the establishment number "337," a production date of "9/09/14" and a use by date of "9/29/14."

Wow!
Mike Brown protesters from Ferguson disrupted the St. Louis Symphony last night in St. Louis City. It all happened as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus were preparing to perform Brahms' Requiem just after the intermission.

The group stood up after intermission and sang,

"Which side are you on? Justice for Mike Brown."

They called it a Mike Brown 'flash mob.' The activists then displayed three hand-painted banners referencing Mike Brown.

Judging from the audience's reaction, they did not have much support from the crowd.

Scientists have used Ebola disease spread patterns and airline traffic data to predict a 75 percent chance the virus could be imported to France by October 24, and a 50 percent chance it could hit Britain by that date.

Those numbers are based on air traffic remaining at full capacity. Assuming an 80 percent reduction in travel to reflect that many airlines are halting flights to affected regions, France's risk is still 25 percent, and Britain's is 15 percent.

"It's really a lottery," said Derek Gatherer of Britain's Lancaster University, an expert in viruses who has been tracking the epidemic - the worst Ebola outbreak in history.

The deadly epidemic has killed more than 3,400 people since it began in West Africa in March and has now started to spread faster, infecting almost 7,200 people so far. Nigeria, Senegal and now the United States - where the first case was diagnosed on Tuesday in a man who flew in from Liberia - have all seen people carrying the Ebola haemorrhagic fever virus, apparently unwittingly, arrive on their shores.

Fire burned through an area of the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Somerset County, on Friday, destroying three administrative buildings that housed a portion of the memorial's prized artifacts.

The collection, which includes the American flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that was presented to the park just last month, was kept in fireproof safes, according to National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst. The collection's condition, however, cannot be assessed until investigators are able to enter the memorial site sometime this morning, he said.

The affected buildings served as the park's headquarters and included the superintendent's office on Park Headquarters Road, Mr. Litterst said. A fourth building was damaged but saved, local fire officials said.

Local fire officials will hand off investigation of the fire to a team of National Park Service investigators today, Mr. Litterst said. No estimate has been made yet of the buildings' replacement and repair cost.

A Congressional gold medal awarded to the memorial was kept offsite and was not damaged, according to Mr. Litterst. Neither were the portions of the park that visitors see, which are approximately 2 miles from the administrative buildings that were destroyed.

"The sacred ground, the wall of names, the construction of the visitors center, the educational center have not been affected in any manner," said Gordon Felt, president of Families of Flight 93 and brother of Edward Felt, who died on-board the flight. "[Memorial superintendent] Jeff Reinbold has assured me the memorial will be open first thing in the morning to accept visitors, and the experience that guests have who come to pay their respects won't be changed at all."